Repetition
by Pandora Imperatrix
Summary: Hinata's mother said once that words lose meaning after being said too many times.


Hinata's mother said once that words lose meaning after being said too many times.

Every time Hinata complained about training being too hard, her mother would tell her to repeat it one hundred times.

It's too hard, too hard, too hard, too hard, too hard,...

She would say it until her lips chapped and her throat ran dry, but it worked like a spell, and in the next day she wasn't afraid of training being too hard for the concept of too hard was lost by repetition.

Hinata's mother said once that words lose meaning after being said too many times.

She died when Hinata was six.

The sickness that took her was a crafty one, it hid behind her already melancholic personality, her modest ways, her sad smiles. Things Hinata always took for granted disappeared little by little. The vegetable garden her mother tended to every morning became a dry barren ground. She didn't come to brush Hinata's hair every night. Her father nominated a wet nurse for Hanabi. Her mother still sat by the dinner table every night, and each nigh her plate looked fuller as she looked smaller. And, one day she didn't wake up.

Hinata couldn't count how many times she heard "I'm hungry" coming from her mother's lips.

I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry.

"I'm **not** hungry, husband, just leave me alone!"

Hinata started stuttering after that. She wanted to use repetition to placate her pain, she wanted to say I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad until she was **not** sad anymore.

But it time she tried the words got stuck "I'm- I'm- I- I- I- I- I- I-"

Until she wasn't sure if she were anything anymore.

Hinata's mother said once that words lose meaning after being said too many times, so Hinata learned with her to save her 'I love yous'. She said once to Hanabi when she was thirteen. One year after she found family in her genin team. Her 'I love you' there meant also 'I forgive you for being better than me, and I also forgive myself'.

The only reason Hinata said it for a second time it was because she thought she was about to die, but it was true and she never regretted it, even if he forgot what she said and never looked at her twice before.

The third time she said it, was to another boy, she had been under his gaze all her life, and what heavy gaze he had, so heavy she didn't dare to look up to him. Years of their lives just knowing him by the shapes of his shadow. Until the day he died. He was gone before his time, she didn't know those words belonged to him until they were, each syllable crawling from her chest as the stutter dragged the feeling from the pit of her heart were it hid all that time 'I l-l-l-l-l-l-l-love you', and the light in his eyes shone before it extinguished. The heavy gaze finally lifted, like a protective cape blown by the winds, lost forever, leaving her bare and vulnerable.

And that was it, she never said it again, not even on her wedding day, too afraid of stretching the words too much, of spending the feeling until it was wasted.

The first time she heard it thought, that was different, those three little words filled her more than any meal ever had, she felt like her heart had just become a balloon and she was floating up and up until she could only see the world from above. Everything becoming small and blurred, being loved made her see everything as a giant mosaic, everything once meaningless now was an irreplaceable piece in the grand scheme of things just because she was loved.

But, he didn't understand parsimony, and he didn't save it.

Hinata's mother said once that words lose meaning after being said too many times.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

And just like that, the meaning was gone.

It gained other meanings, 'good morning', 'hello', 'I'm sorry', 'don't be angry', 'please stop looking at me like that I see the hurt in your eyes but I can't help myself'.

Hinata's mother said once that words lose meaning after being said too many times.

But she didn't say it could happen if it was another person saying them.

And it those nights while she tried to ignore the heavy breathing sounds of the man by her side, that once meant the world to her and now, just like his words, meant nothing; she wondered if the contrary was true. She wondered if words you said less meant more. What about the words you never said, then?

Hinata's mother said once that words lose meaning after being said too many times.

Once she said "I love you" to a dying boy, she wondered if it was one desperate attempt to make it less real. He never said anything like that to her, he knew the trick, he never needed to.

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Inspired by Repetition by Phil Kaye. Reviews are always nice. 


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